A hero must be willing to sacrifice his own happiness for that of others.

Hiro Nakamura had tried his best, but he had not always been all that a hero should. But as the time of his death approached, he was able to look at his life with a new sense of perspective. It is easier to be selfless when soon there will be no 'self' left.

He knew that Ando had been in love with Kimiko for more than fourteen years. And that if Kimiko could just look beyond her lingering resentment from the incident at the carnival, she would see how truly lucky she was to be the one he desired. They would be happy together, and after Hiro was gone neither his sister nor his best friend would be alone.

He was no longer the little boy who had rushed across the fairground to throw his arms around Ando and interrupt that critical romantic moment. He was the great Takezo Kensei, who had willingly cut out his own heart for the sake of his love. So he let the strange Butterfly Man persuade him to do something he had sworn never to do again, and change the past. Stepping into the path of that slushy and setting their relationship back on track was a noble act of heroism – it must be, or else why would it hurt so much?

"Hiro!" Ando leapt up from his desk. "Are you OK? What happened?"

Hiro looked around, and a smile began to grow on his face. He was in the Yamagato building again, in the same room he had left. The Dial-A-Hero advertisements still decorated the walls. Ando was there, looking just as he always had. It seemed that he really had managed to leave the world as he knew it intact, changing only one thing.

"I went back to the carnival! Fourteen years ago! Where it all started!"

"Did you save your life?"

"No," Hiro said softly. "I could not change that. If I didn't have my power, many people would have died."

"So you went back and changed nothing?"

The look of grief on Ando's face went straight to Hiro's heart. Kimiko or no Kimiko, Ando was his best, most loyal friend. It was worth going back in time – it would be worth stepping on a thousand butterflies to bring him happiness.

"Not exactly. Has anything changed for you, Ando?"

"No. Everything's the same."

"Anything at all?"

"No."

Something had clearly gone very wrong. Ando had always said that night was when Kimiko decided he was an idiot and he lost any chance he had with her. Had she gotten upset over her lost balloon in this timeline? But … surely she wouldn't be that petty …

"What about Kimiko?" Hiro asked, almost pleading.

Before Ando could answer, Kimiko herself stepped through the door.

"One million yen per month," she announced briskly. "Your new rent, Hiro. You want to use the conference room, you have to pay. First, last and security deposit – on my desk by tomorrow morning."

Hiro numbly accepted the papers she thrust at him and bowed. His sister swept out of the room once again.

"It'll be OK, Hiro," said Ando. He laid a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder. "Dial-A-Hero business is bound to pick up soon. Remember your bar graph? We'll be fine, we always are."

Hiro silently nodded. Then temporarily forgot how to breathe when Ando leaned in and pressed their lips together as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

That was not supposed to happen.

"Hiro?" Ando drew back in concern. "Did you freeze again?" He snapped his fingers in front of Hiro's face.

Hiro knocked the hand away. "I'm fine, I'm not frozen. But … Ando, what are you doing?"

"Kissing you," replied Ando. He looked distinctly puzzled. "Is something wrong?"

"Everything's wrong," whispered Hiro. "A hero does not use his powers for personal gain! I was being selfless!"

"What are you talking about?"

"What happened at the carnival? Did you spill your slushy on her again?"

"No, I spilled my slushy on ..." Ando trailed off, looking at the blue stain on Hiro's shirt. "Well, I guess it was you."

"What happened next? It is very important that you tell me. I may have broken the space-time continuum."

"Kimiko and I went for a ride on the Ferris wheel while you tried to knock down a stack of bottles. I kissed her at the top. Then we all got hot dogs and went home."

"So it worked at first," muttered Hiro. "Something must have gone wrong later -"

"Wait. I still don't know what's going on. Did you go back in time to set me up with your sister?"

"That was the idea."

"Why?"

"It was a gift. She was the love of your life."

"Kimmy?" Ando shook his head. "The love of my life?"

"You always said she was."

"We were fourteen! Kimiko was a pretty girl who'd talk to me in public, of course I thought I was in love with her. But that's no foundation for a relationship. Who ends up with their high school crush?"

In this timeline … me, apparently.

"No, you always said she was. Whenever you were feeling melancholy or you got dumped or ..."

"So, in the time you come from, you and I never ..." Hiro shook his head. "And I was still mooning over her fourteen years later?" Hiro nodded. "Wow. Parallel me was an idiot."

"I'm sorry, Ando. Something went wrong. But it's OK, I can go back and fix it properly -"

Hiro began to get a look of intense concentration.

"Stop!" Ando yelled, and grabbed his arms. Hiro stopped, and the look on Ando's face softened. "Hiro, I'm happy with you," he said, loosening his grip but leaving his hands where they were. "Forget about Kimiko. She's great, we're still good friends, but we only dated for six months. By that time, both of us knew we weren't destined for each other. And I was starting to figure out that Kimmy wasn't the reason I spent half my life hanging around the Nakamura family."

Hiro blinked at him. It began to really dawn on him that the secret hope he'd been trying to suppress since … well, long before that night at the carnival … wasn't so impossible after all. Ando was still touching him, and he was standing very close, and he was smiling in a way that made Hiro's knees weak. I could kiss him now. The thought was thrilling, but he couldn't bring himself to follow through with it. He still wasn't entirely sure this wasn't all a dream or hallucination.

"How long have you and I been together?" he asked.

Specific details were always good when you were caught in a confusing alternate timeline. Apparently Ando remembered that, as he answered readily.

"Since our second year of college. It's the time for experimenting. And our experiment was very successful." He grinned, then the look faded and he continued "That's what we always say when someone asks. You really don't remember any of this?"

"I remember making a long, rambling speech about experimentation to you one night. But I think you thought I was talking about drugs."

Ando laughed. "If that was the speech I remember, it would have been hard to misinterpret. Drugs don't make someone blush that much."

"You may have been … distracted. It was around the time Kimiko started seeing Osamu Kishi."

"That would explain it. I still think parallel me was an idiot, though," Ando added reflectively. "Well – any other questions? Ask me anything."

There were a lot of things Hiro was really, really interested in hearing about – the details of Ando's response to his big 'experimentation' speech, for instance – but there was one thing whose importance dwarfed everything else. "Do … in this timeline … " Hiro swallowed deeply and pushed his glasses up his nose. "Do you love me?"

"Of course I love you." Ando drew back a little, looking suddenly nervous. "Do you? We were just friends in the time you came from and you changed history trying to get me together with someone else …"

Hiro shook his head vehemently. "No! I mean, yes! This is the best possible future I could have created. The only way it could be better would be if I remembered it happening. I have been in love with you since …" But he trailed off, because the lines between 'best friend', 'very handsome best friend', 'secret crush' and 'impossible love' had all blurred into each other long ago, and it was easier to just throw himself into Ando's arms and kiss him rather than try to pin down the point where it had all started.

It was the kind of kiss Hiro had always imagined when trying to think what kissing his friend would be like: warm and enthusiastic and brimming over with affection. It felt so familiar, somehow, so natural and perfect, that the possibility that this was an elaborate practical joke went from 'faint' to 'nonexistent'. Ando had obviously done this before, surely you couldn't kiss someone like that without practice. But for Hiro himself it was only the second time, and it was new and exciting and absolutely wonderful …

"Hey!" came Kimiko's voice from the doorway. She was the picture of older sisterly wrath. If not for the bundle of folders in her arms, she would probably have her hands on her hips. Hiro tried to look penitent, but failed spectacularly. Kimiko appeared to be struggling for something suitably stern to say that befitted her status as CEO. Finally, she settled for "Can't you two get a room?"

"We did," Hiro pointed out, indicating the rental agreement she'd presented to him. "And you are in it."

This argument did not seem to impress her. "You haven't signed it yet. Get out. Go to lunch or something; come back when you can keep your hands to yourselves."

"Works for me," said Ando cheerfully. "Sorry, Kimmy."

Kimiko pulled a face at him but, to Hiro's astonishment, didn't protest the casual familiarity. So she really did like Ando when he wasn't trying to flirt with her every second word.

"You're like teenagers," she announced. "Though I don't know why I should expect any better from the men who think Dial-A-Hero is a good business idea …"

"It is an excellent idea! You saw the bar graph!"

"Out!"

Hiro was laughing giddily as they left the building. "I did it!"

"Did what?" Ando grabbed his hands and pulled them down. "People are staring, just walk like a normal person." His smile, and the fact that he kept hold of one of Hiro's hands as they walked down the street, took the sting out of his words.

"I used my power for good! Butterfly Man was right, changing the past isn't always bad. I made the world better -" He waved their linked hands as proof. "- and no-one got hurt, our destiny was still accomplished. This is a sign. I can use my power to right the wrongs I have done in my life!"